Freeplay Mod & Interesting things in Game Code

[Alex]

Freeplay Mod

Don't know where else to put it, so here's something I've been working on for the past couple of hours. A small mod which gives you an additional main-menu entry, allowing you to start the game without the story enabled and without any travel restrictions. I've made a small set of different starts which you can choose from ranging from a damaged Hammer Cruiser to a fully equipped Parkan.

However, please note that I haven't tested this extensively, so if you run into any problems please let me know. If you encounter a crash which you believe is caused by my mod, send me a Screenshot of the error message and I'll try to fix it asap.

Instructions for installing this mod are included in the readme within the "Base Module" folder. The additional start presets are located within the "Addon Modules" folder.

If you've got any suggestions feel free to let me know, I love working with this old game since I have a loooot of fond childhood memories of me praying for it to run longer than 30min before crashing. Good old days....

Download

Download Link is in this post. [www.gog.com]

Other Mods

I am working on a couple of other mods since I enjoy how open the game is built, basically allowing you to change almost everything. If you can read through the clusterf*ck that is the decompiled LUA code.

Something which I'm now working on which might be interesting for those using this mod is the Argus / Grey Sector which is only used once in the campaign. With some tweaking I might be able to establish it as a full sector where you can buy a Parkan, which is currently not possible.

PS: If anyone has a converter for the Game's model allowing for both converting from and to the game files, please let me know.

[C150utcast]

Ok so this is kind of a somewhat offtopic question, but before that i just want to prelude this by saying it's awesome that someone's finally went off to make a sandbox/ free play mode for Parkan 2! i always wanted to kind of go the Mount and Blade route of just either freelancing between factions, acting as a merchant selling wares to caravans, or a conqueror bound on dominating the other factions.

That set aside, have you found out how to solve the "ghost inventory" bug? There's this game breaking bug where occasionally while fighting pirates or other ships in space combat, if you board the enemy ship and star stealing items in their cargo holds, there is a chance to accidentally get a "ghost item" that, when in your inventory, will eat up all items you put in to the slot that it's equipped in. It's resulted with me in countless CTDs and seemed to also bug out my ship's lasers so i can't use them in space combat for whatever reason.

(also extra question is, is it possible for you to make a way to be able to play the game with Russian Audio but English subtitles and UI? i saw some clips of it played in russian and the Voice acting for all the characters in that version sound more badass)

In whatever the case is, i'm excited to try your mod out and report back soon once i manage to get a feel for it! Gonna redownload Parkan 2 just to give it another shot and to try your mod!

[Alex]

Originally posted by C150utcast:

Ok so this is kind of a somewhat offtopic question, [...]

Always glad to see new comments on here, shows me that people are still interested in this game.

Now regarding that bug, I haven't actually seen that one yet. Are you sure that it can only occur during space combat with pirates? Also if you could provide a save where you're afflicted by that bug would help. Should be located in your Parkan2/Save directory with the same filename as in the menu.

Finally, getting Russian voices is very easy and doesn't require any modding. Just switch the game version to Russian via steam (maybe make a backup of your game if you have mods installed) and let it update, maybe also let steam validate the files to be safe and make a copy of the voices folder in your game directory. Then just switch the game back to English, restore the backups if necessary and move the voices folder back into the game to overwrite the existing ones. That'll give you just the Russian voices while everything else remains English.

[C150utcast]

I had to translate a bunch of Russian Cyrillic and Polish discussion/guide posts here on steam to be able to get down to that being the distinct reason that my save was ruined with constant CTDs; the thing is, my favorite means of fighting space battles is speeding in to pirate or hostile ships, force them in to boarding action, steal all their cargo gear to sell for later, and have them blow their own ship up in order to deny my access to their cargo. It's personally the easiest and funnest way for me to take on several ships at a time without needing to think about my ship's lacking arsenal too much or needing to deploy the space combat drones.

From a certain point on, when i left a certain planet after a certain mission, my primary firing lasers for whatever reason were always damaged to 0% meaning i couldn't use them, and every time i tried to go back to a planet in hopes of being able to have them repaired, it CTDs. I ended up having to scour the internet looking around if anyone had encountered similar problems, and the only ones i got were roughly translated into english (granted regardless of some sub-optimal translating, i was able to get the general context of what they were warning about) and one of them in particular talks about a "phantom object" that you can only get when stealing cargo when boarding action in space battles or when picking up after their wreckage. (kinda had an entire discussion page about it called "can't fire my primary lasers" around a year ago)

I'll look around for which of my saves is still affected by the bug, but it may take a while since i had around 10 saves and i encountered this around a year ago. I'll update you when i find it. Should i give you like a dropbox link or something with the bugged save file when i do find it?

p.s. thanks for wanting to look in to this issue, and i guess in a sense getting to the bottom of it may help prevent some strange or frustrating interactions for people who want to play pirate, merchant or a mix of both in your sandbox mod. (also thanks for the advice for that other thing i asked about with regards to Russian audio with English UI; never thought of it that way before XD)

[Alex]

Yepp, pretty much just upload them wherever and I'll see what I can do. I'm gonna try to reproduce the Bug on my End as well. My only fear is that the bug is caused by something inside the .dll files since I cannot access those... If I wasn't already working on 2 games I'd just remake the game from scratch lmao. Parkan 2 definitely deserves a remake, even if it's just a fan-remake.

[C150utcast]

Alrighty found them! Game saves 4,5 and 6 are ones that CTD and game save 9 has the weird primary weapon slot bug (usually if a weapon slot is not in use, it just says something along the line of "no weapon equipped" but for whatever reason the slots don't even appear at all). No need to rush or anything; i can understand the whole being stacked up with work, be it hobby or actual work work, so i don't want to add up to the stack this immediately either hehe.

As for a Parkan 2 Remake, official or otherwise hell yeah i'm with you on that! A nice and simple but niche and uniquely arranged mechanics are put together to make a game that make an addicting formula. Imagine if they had open mod support for this a long time ago XD

Dropbox link to game saves and a little reminder readme note just in case:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9p9az8h7z5l28u0/AACfRxP7SYv1qoiElUI64XTJa?dl=

Thanks again and whatever the case may be, i hope good progress in either of your projects!

[SVX-8]

Oh wow, someone modding my favourite childhood game in this day and age. Respect to you, I didn't expect people to remember about this game.

[Наёмник]

Originally posted by Knoox:

С Новым Годом! This is an excellent mod! I'm surprised anyone still remembers this great game. Is it possible to solve the problem with a small interface in 4K resolution? :oberon:

Разрешение можно изменить через wrapper dgvoodoo 2, в настрокайх directx -> Resolution ,в игре выставить меньшее, что приведет к изменению интерфейса на более крупное ,единственная проблема то что указатель блокируется на низком разрешении. Скорее всего это можно исправить через hex редактор,

The resolution can be changed via wrapper dgvoodoo 2, in the settings of directx - > Resolution, in the game to set a smaller one, which will change the interface to a larger one ,the only problem is that the pointer is blocked at a low resolution. Most likely this can be fixed through the hex editor,

[Knoox]

I remembered something interesting. On the planet where there was a duel with Hegemount, in addition to ours and his ship, there is some other structure, but if you try to get there, an invisible wall will become an obstacle. The question is, can this limitation be removed? It’s painfully interesting what is there. (I don't know English. I use a translator. I hope there are no errors and the above is clear :D)

[KrYcHokE]

Any news?

[Knoox]

Originally posted by Наёмник:

Разрешение можно изменить через wrapper dgvoodoo 2, в настрокайх directx -> Resolution ,в игре выставить меньшее, что приведет к изменению интерфейса на более крупное ,единственная проблема то что указатель блокируется на низком разрешении. Скорее всего это можно исправить через hex редактор,

The resolution can be changed via wrapper dgvoodoo 2, in the settings of directx - > Resolution, in the game to set a smaller one, which will change the interface to a larger one ,the only problem is that the pointer is blocked at a low resolution. Most likely this can be fixed through the hex editor,

Получилось то что я хотел, однако с заблокированным указателем неиграбельно совсем(

It turned out as I wanted, though with a blocked pointer, completely unplayable(

[lordlongsdale]

thank you for ur mod and the nice thread.welcome to 2023 :)